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Just when you thought they’d finally eased off…

Published:
15 July 2001

The Home Secretary has been telling police forces to down-grade their focus on speeding, the Met Police have called a halt to any additional Gatsos, to spend more cash on catching real criminals. You could be forgiven for thinking the obsession with cracking down on speeding was finally over… fat chance.

Despite the growing criticism that fines generated from speed cameras have become another form of back-door taxation, the Government is about to give the go ahead to another six police forces to keep the cash they generate from Gatsos.

They will have to use the money to fund more anti-speeding measures.

The latest move is an expansion of a pilot scheme that has been running in eight areas for the last 15 months.

The six new areas have not yet been named. We’ll let you know as soon as they are.

The areas which have tested the scheme have seen a 10-fold increase in fixed penalty speeding notices. That suggests the idea isn’t actually making people slow down, it just means more people are getting caught, paying fines, getting points on their licences and forking out more for insurance. Can anyone recall voting for that?

Financial experts also estimate that while the police, courts and councils are able to reclaim so me of their enforcement costs, the Government is still able to cream off substantial amounts.

They suggest that if the scheme was extended throughout the country there would be an extra £120 million a year pouring into Government coffers.